10/17/2025
great
BREAKING: A federal appeals court deals a CRUSHING defeat to Donald Trump by upholding a judge's block on his fascist attempt to deploy 500 National Guard troops into Chicago to stomp his political enemies.
And the ruling itself was absolutely scathing...
“Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry fi****ms as the law currently allows," wrote a panel composed of Judges Amy St. Eve, Ilana Kara Diamond Rovner, and Judge David Hamilton.
"Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. Such conduct exceeds the scope of the First Amendment, of course, and law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrators accordingly," they continued. "But because rebellions at least use deliberate, organized violence to resist governmental authority, the problematic incidents in this record clearly fall within the considerable daylight between protected speech and rebellion.”
This ruling by 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejects an appeal from the Trump administration to lift a temporary hold on the deployment put in place by U.S. District Court Judge April Perry. At the same time, it halts Perry's block on Trump's efforts to federalize the troops in question. In essence, they're saying that he can keep his toys, but that he can't play with them.
"We conclude that the district court’s factual findings at this preliminary stage were not clearly erroneous, and that the facts do not justify the president’s actions in Illinois ... even giving substantial deference to his assertions,” the panel wrote. “The administration remains barred from deploying the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.”
“The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority,” they added.
The decision means that the troops will have to remain at a military facility near Joliet. As usual when discussing these power grabs by Trump, it's worth underlining the fact that none of this is actually about fighting "lawlessness" like the administration is claiming. Our convicted felon of a president doesn't care about crime. He cares about terrorizing protestors and projecting a strongman persona to his supporters.
Once again, we see the courts serving as an essential guardrail against Trump's creeping — and at times bounding — authoritarianism.
Please like and share!
